Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar for playing Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, led Hollywood’s tributes for the scientist, who died at the age of 76 on Wednesday.

Stephen Hawking’s death on Wednesday left the universe a slightly dimmer place but lit up social media as celebrities alike praised a scientist whose appeal crossed time, space and cultural boundaries.

He died peacefully at his home in the British university city of Cambridge in the early hours of Wednesday.

Eddie Redmayne, who played Hawking in 2014’s The Theory of Everything, said in a statement to USA Today “We have lost a truly beautiful mind, an astonishing scientist and the funniest man I have ever had the pleasure to meet. My love and thoughts are with his extraordinary family.” Redmayne won an Oscar for his performance.

“We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today,” his children Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement.

As we near Pi day (3.14) I join the global community in mourning the loss of the greatest physicist of our era. #StephenHawking is free from the physical constraints of this earthly condition we all exist in and he is soaring above us now marveling at it all. pic.twitter.com/o3V0TZrppj

It had to happen, eventually. We were lucky to have him for so long, and I was lucky to be able to work with him. A truly fabulous human being. Stephen Hawking. Funny, perverse, and, of course, brilliant.

RIP Stephen Hawking. Genuinely very sad to hear that. If you haven’t, read A Brief History of Time. It’ll make the world feel more amazing and beautiful and strange. It’ll also make you feel smart and stupid all at once.

Although I never met Stephen Hawking it was always an honour that he accepted the role of ‘Deep Thought’ in my Big Read episode of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, thus aptly voicing the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

His passing has left an intellectual vacuum in his wake. But it's not empty. Think of it as a kind of vacuum energy permeating the fabric of spacetime that defies measure. Stephen Hawking, RIP 1942-2018. pic.twitter.com/nAanMySqkt